


Christmas Song

by JoAsakura



Category: X-Factor (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 04:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt:  The musician AU! Scruffy, semi-starving musician Julio Richter somehow loses his guitar. This could be the perfect opportunity for Shatterstar to prove himself. Extra appreciation if they're still mutants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Iambic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iambic/gifts).



**December 22**

It was three days before Christmas and Julio Esteban Richter - better known as Rictor, Ric or "That Guitar Guy on the B-Train Platform"- was in the process of having the worst holiday since he'd come to New York, rich in dreams and poor in just about every other category.

He'd discovered that this time of year was a good gig. Rictor had wrangled a spot on the platform where the subway bled harried shoppers and tourists into Rockefeller Center, and the holidays always made the purse strings of the thronging masses just a little looser.

He didn't have much. A beat-up Stratocaster. An aging pawnshop amp. A homebrew loop pedal. But it was enough to rock the crowd gathered on the platform as they waited for their trains.

Even the omnipresent homeless guy huddled in the corner down-platform seemed to be listening. Ric shot a glance out of the corner of his eye as he sang, watching the filthy hood and the ragged hair bobbing in time with the rhythm of the song. He figured the bum probably rode the same subway line all day, moving from station to station to stay out of the cold.

"There must be some way out of here," said Magneto to the Toad,  
"There's too much confusion, I feel that I might explode.  
Sentinels, they drink my blood, humans take my genes,  
None of them along the line know what any of it means."

His voice was rough and his fingers ached more than a little bit. Ric was reaching the end of a long day, but the battered guitar case in front of him was looking fairly flush with cash, and he'd even unloaded a couple of the home-made CDs that Guido had burned for him.

The B rattled towards the station, kicking up a wall of winter-cold air in front of it and drowning Ric out. A few teens, one of them in a stencilled Magneto-head sweatshirt leaned down, looking like he'd toss a buck or two in Ric's case. They were cute, he thought. A little young for him, maybe, but still, cute. He finished up his song to scattered applause and set the Strat down to close the case.

Then everything went to crap.

The train roared in, and the kids surged towards Rictor. In a moment, one of them took a grab at some of the cash and two others slammed into Ric. In the next, the floor of the station rumbled ominously in time with his agitation and Ric fell to his knees, spreading his fingers out on the filthy tile.

"Shit, no, stop stop stop,"he whispered, panicked as the B train started to vibrate. The station filled with filthy dust and shards of masonry and something dark darted past the corner of his eye. He was too busy trying to rein in the tremors to care. "Nononononostopstopstop!"

By the time the platform stopped shaking, though, the damage was done.

He blinked through the sweat, dust and debris, then started cursing. The train was derailed. The station was a mess. The kids were gone. Most of his cash was gone, and when Ric sat back against the edge of the stairs, he realised, with a sick feeling in his stomach, that his Strat was gone.

Even the goddamn bum was gone.

"Shit."

~~~~

Ric's squat was on the drafty third floor of a long-abandoned funeral home, which, like so much else in Ric's life, had seen some better days.

And much like Ric himself, it currently looked dirty and battered on the outside but it was definitely lively on the inside.

His rooms may have been semi-feral in terms of repairs, but the first two floors and basement had been colonised by a commune of freegan mutant hippies, who, while less-than-optimal in terms of noise, were abso-frigging-lutely brilliant at dumpster diving and scoring free stuff. He just had to periodically entertain them and chip in what he could for things that couldn't be scrounged, and all was good.

Or at least it had been before he'd gotten his guitar stolen and almost destroyed the 47th Street subway station. As it was, it had taken him nearly two hours to get back uptown with the line delays he'd inadvertently caused.

"Shit," he muttered to no one in particular and fished a beer out of the community fridge. He hated thinking about it and hoped to god the city didn't have freaky psychic crime scene investigators like he'd seen on TV.

Up in his rooms, he dumped his gear on the floor and kicked open the guitar case. Around fifty bucks. That's all the little fuckers had left him. True, he had his amp and the loop pedal, but unless he was going to hook them up and twang the elastic in his underpants, he was more than slightly fucked.

Rictor kicked the case peevishly, setting the change to jingling, and cursed again, flopping on the ratty old couch with his beer.

He didn't realize he'd fallen asleep until he woke up disoriented, mostly empty bottle pressed to his chest.

The window had rattled and the room was cold.

With a grunt, Ric scrambled to his feet, the remains of his beer splashing about as he clutched the bottle like a weapon, in time to see a shadow darting away from the open window.

Panicked, he looked around the room. The amp and loop pedal, along with his sad remaining fifty dollars were where he left them. In fact, other than the chilly night air sneaking in and messing with the papers on his floor, everything was where he left it.

"HAH! An' don't come back!" he shouted out the window, shaking his fist at the night. "Pendejo! Fucker! Try an' steal the rest of my stuff wouldja?"

Only when he put his hand down on the windowsill did he notice the metal… thing… resting on the chipped paint.

The couch creaked as Ric sat back down, examining the thing. It was dull, faintly translucent, gold and about half the size of his subway card. It was embossed with some weird loopy writing and a Braille-like pattern on one side and flakes of something unpleasantly brownish was caught between the raised dots.

"…the fuck?" he said to the empty room, turning it over in his fingers. The back had been gouged up badly with something sharp. "The fuck. I mean, come on," Rictor cursed as he let it fall to the coffee table with a thunk.

Today had been just entirely too strange.

 

**December 23**

"You got boosted by a buncha punks, Julio? What de fuck, boy?" Old man Newson reached over the counter to cuff Rictor in the head.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Rictor dodged the first slap, only to find himself smacked by the old man's other nicotine-stained hand. "OW."

"Like dat hurt." The man's giant black sunglasses made him look like a bug. Ric wasn't exactly sure how old Old Man Newson was, but it had to be at least fifty. Ancient. "Now I'm sure you didn't stop by for summa mah tender lovin' care, Richter. You got somethin' you wanna pawn?"

Ric sighed, looking around the cluttered shop. "I just wanna see if you know what this thing is, first off." He looked around again, satisfied no one else was there, and let the metal card slide out of his hand onto the glass.

Old man Newson made an odd strangled noise and then slid the sunglasses down his nose. Red eyes squinted at the piece, then darted back to Rictor before he popped the glasses back up. "Where'dju get dis, boy?" he rasped, turning it over in his fingers like Rictor had done the night before.

"Why? What the fuck is it?" Rictor tried to snatch it back, but the old man's reflexes were distressingly fast.

"What the fuck is it? It's a Genoshan slave tag, boy." Newson held it up to the light.

"From the war?" Rictor snorted. "Man, I remember my mom saying I hadda finish my dinner cuz the war orphans in Genosha were starving."

Newson snorted as well. "Pretty good shape, too. The RFID chips dat were inserted in dese t'ings, it's been gouged out, see?" He pointed one skinny finger to the knife marks. "But other'an dat an dis blood?" He ran a thumbnail along the brownish flakes. "it's real nice. Ain't gonna lie to ya boy, I could sell onna dese on de Ebay for some good cash. Collectors, y'know?"

"Blood? Why's it got blood on it?" Rictor asked, feeling mildly squicked.

Even behind the sunglasses, he could tell Newson was rolling his eyes. "Dey was implanted in d'slaves, y'know, like chippin' a dog." He snorted. "Did it so run'ways could be tracked." He tapped the tag on the counter, thoughtful. Ric made a little grunt of disbelief and those big black sunglasses fixed on him.

"You learn about de war in school, boy?" he asked then, and Ric frowned at him. Great. He was going to have to listen to Newson babble on about the damn war.

"Yeah, it's like part of every friggin' junior high social studies class, man." Ric sat down heavily on the battered stool. "US came in, helped the rebels overthrow the Magistrates an' the mutant slave culture, everybody lives happily ever after, yadda yadda yadda."

"I was in de war, boy. De rebels, dey as bad as de magistrates, takin' children t'fight." He made a disgusted sound. "But when rebels captured? Dey jus' din' get tagged, dey got branded too - fuck em up so dey can never escape." He tapped out another cigarette.

"Saw too much, dere. We liberated a lot'a mutant slave pits an' arenas. In de refugee camps, we watched 'em carve dese tags outta dere skin. Even de children. Bloody, bloody stuff." He didn't seem to be talking to Rictor anymore.

Ric watched him absently turning the tag over in his skinny fingers and felt even queasier. "How much?" he blurted out.

"What?" Newson audibly blinked.

"How much'll you gimme for that? It's creepy. It was, like, implanted in somebody? It was... I... I don't want that, dude." He made a shooing motion towards the older man. "People collect that shit?"

Newson was too quiet. "Shit, boy," he finally said. "Five hundred. I give you five hundred for it."

Rictor looked around again. "Five hundred and that guitar." He pointed to a battered Telecaster on the wall. "It's not a Strat, but it's pretty nice."

Newson sounded like he might puke. "Kee-rist. Fine, fine." Rictor expected him to sound jollier. After all, Ric was the one getting ripped off here, even if he never had any intention of keeping some weird, creepy war trophy.

~~

It had started snowing while Rictor attempted to extract himself from Newson's pawn shop before the older man got started on another one of his interminable stories. He pulled up the collar on his coat and huddled down into it, the Telecaster's case clutched in one hand and his wallet fatter than it had been in ages. Whoever had left that thing for him had done him a good turn, inadvertently or not.

As he stepped out of the shop, Rictor paused; squinting through the falling snow at the figure crouched across the street.

Memory was slow to surface, but when it did, Ric almost dropped the guitar. "YOU!" He pointed at the bum from the subway station. The figure, nothing more than layers of filthy-dark fabric in the white snow, jerked upright and took off.

"Fuck!" Rictor scrambled after him, boots skidding on the slick sidewalks. "WAIT, WAITAMINNIT!" he roared. The bum was fast, surefooted as he vaulted over a trashcan. Rictor was neither fast nor agile, but after a few minutes of breathless cursing, he remembered the one advantage he _did_ have.

"I.. SAID.. WAIT!" he shouted, stamping his foot down on the ground. The pavement rippled outward and trying to keep it focused in a straight line down the alley was like trying to wrangle a sack of very angry eels. The old buildings around rattled and he cringed a little as there was the bright tinkle of breaking glass. "Whoops...Sorry, sorry.." he muttered as he followed the broken concrete towards where he'd seen the dark shape stumble and fall.

Something bright flashed out from the dirty rags and Ric fell backwards, clutching the guitar case in front of him. But the bum didn't lunge, he stood there, shaking just very slightly, holding the little knife. "Sorry. I... I am sorry," he said. Rough, rough voice. Accent thick and harsh. Not quite unfamiliar, but in a city of millions of voices, Ric would've been hard pressed to tell you where it originated.

"Why'd you take my guitar?" Ric scooted back on his behind, still holding the case between them. "You did… take my guitar, didn't you?"

"I... no." Ric couldn't see the man's face. A filthy, olive-drab hooded coat and a tangle of brownish hair and brownish beard. Ric wondered, with maybe just a little touch of hysteria, if the man was one of those animal-type mutants like the mouthy cat girl who lived in the commune downstairs from him. "Fekt. I.. I am sorry," the man said again.

His big hands were bare (human looking, no fur, Ric thought with another touch of hysteria), and as filthy as his clothes, but his fingers were long and strangely graceful, moving as he spoke. "I was... unable to retrieve your instrument... uhm... uhm..." he said another word that Rictor didn't recognize and made a helpless gesture. "…Broken. It was broken," he said finally, the layers of fabric sagging in on themselves in defeat. "Sorry."

"You tried to get it back from those punks," Rictor said carefully, finally getting to his feet. His butt was wet and he was starting to get cold now that he wasn't running anymore. "You tried to save it for me?"

"I failed," the bum said quietly. "My honor... I needed to correct."

Rictor blinked, and it was as if someone had opened a refrigerator somewhere for the small light that went on in his brain. "Wait. Was that you outside my window last night?" he asked.

The man started, the big hood flicking back and forth as he seemed to be trying to look at anything other than Rictor. He sagged again. "Yes. But I will... I will not return. As you told me."

Rictor pinched the bridge of his nose. "Agh." Things were getting complicated. "Ok, ok. Look. I'm cold. It's snowing and... and I think maybe I owe you. You left me that tag thing?"

"Yes," the man said, still looking at his battered boots.

"You really helped me out, then. Uhm…thanks." Rictor sighed. "So, let me get you some, I dunno, some food or something, ok? After all, it's like, the holiday season an' shit." He had a nagging list of questions piling up and the bum was more than slightly scary, but…

But.

He owed him. And Julio Esteban Richter, also known as Rictor, Ric or "That Guitar Guy on the B-Train Platform" was not about to let a debt go unpaid.

~~~

"Come on." Ric tapped his foot as the big lump stood perfectly still, even after that heartfelt declaration of thanks. It was starting to snow harder and Ric's patience was at its end. He held out his hand. "Come. _On_." He grumbled. "Just come with me, ok? Geeze."

Those long fingers curled around Ric's hand and he felt a shiver creep up his spine. They were rough, calloused and just a little warm. And even though he didn't want to think about how dirty they were, they felt nice twined with his own. "We need to make a stop and then we'll go to the place I live. There's food there." He paused, lip curling in a brainstem reaction. "And maybe we can hose you off a little bit. You stink, dude."

"Sorry," the bum mumbled, head still downcast. But he kept his grip on Rictor's hand like an oversized child. He followed obediently until they got to a nearby bodega.

"Hold the case and stay, ok?" Ric felt like he was talking to some oversized dog, except he'd noticed there was nothing doglike in the way the man had run from him earlier. Wolf, yes. Domesticated? Yeah, not that much. "Can you do that?" he said carefully and the big head, shrouded in fabric and tangled hair, nodded.

Fifteen minutes and thirty bucks later, Ric came out to find the bum exactly where he left him. He felt his shoulders unclenched and held out his hand again. "Uhm. Good boy," Ric grumbled. He could've sworn he saw the scraggly beard part in what might have been a smile. It wasn't particularly comforting.

Also, the silence was killing him worse than the stares of the other pedestrians. "So. Uhm. So, you were in the War then, right? That's where you got that thing?"

"War? Yes. I was." The bigger man said, oddly detached. Rictor had realised as they walked that the bum would probably stand a good head taller than him if he straightened up. And he was broad. Some of it might have been layers of clothing- the coat was huge- but Ric's mind was filled with very vivid images of letting some giant homeless war vet, crazy as old Newson but with worse hygiene, into his place.

And yet his feet kept carrying him those extra blocks with that warm, rough hand caught in his own. On the graffiti-covered front steps, he paused. "How did you know where I lived, anyway?" Ric turned to the big man.

"I stayed there..." he made a vague gesture towards one of the abandoned buildings. "And I heard you play. Was... was..." He paused again, fingers twitching around Rictor's hand. "…Pretty. No..." He shook his head. "I don't know the word. But it felt good. It felt like.." the words trailed off with some guttural, odd sound.

"So you followed me downtown every week?" Ric let go of his hand and resisted the urge to wipe it off on his pants. "Do you know 'stalking'?" He made air quotes with his free hand, scowling.

"No, no. I wanted...I wanted to protect you. From thieves." The big hands seemed as rueful as his voice as they moved. "I failed."

"Cripes. Ok. It's ok." Ric sighed. "Don't worry about it. C'mon." He started up the steps, then stopped as he realised he wasn't being followed. "Christ." Ric held out his hand. "C'mon. It's ok."

~~~

Ric had gotten the bum upstairs with minimal commentary from Maria with regards to his newfound "pet Sasquatch" and only a few curious, uncomfortable looks from the others. If the bum had noticed, he made no sign of it, holding Rictor's hand until they got to his rooms.

"Ok. Shower's over there." Ric pointed down the hall. "Leave your stuff out in the hallway and clean up, ok? Because you really stink an' I ain't feedin' anyone who smells like roadkill."

"It's ok?" The big, hooded head turned to look down the hallway and then back at Ric. In the brighter light of his apartment, he thought he saw a glint of eyes behind the tangle.

"It's fine. Go. I'm gonna get us some food for when you're done. Maybe somethin' for you to wear. It's ok." He gave the bum a little shove towards the bathroom. "And here." He pressed the plastic bag in the bum's hand. "Razor, brush, an' stuff. Don't use mine."

"Ok." He gave Rictor a thumbs up like it was a gesture he'd learned from an alien and slouched his way to the bathroom.

"Leave your stuff out in the hallway!" Ric shouted towards his back and sighed as the big man vanished into the bathroom. "Ric, you are one stupid dude," he muttered, shaking his head.

When he came back upstairs, some not-quite expired skillet dinner and slightly bruised produce in hand, Ric was greeted by a stinking pile of fabric in the hallway. They actually smelled worse, as if removing them had disturbed some long-dormant stink. Rictor made a little "ick" sound and kicked them aside.

It was also distressingly quiet. There was no sound of running water or the banging of pipes. "Oh do NOT be just sitting in there." Ric muttered, setting the food down. "Hey. Hey, uhm. Bum guy who tried to save my guitar," he said stupidly. "You still alive in there?" He knocked on the door.

"Yes." Came the reply. "I... I think I have... a problem." Ric pinched his nose again. Awesome.

"Ok. I'm opening the door. Is that ok?" He got what sounded like an affirmative grunt in response so Ric pushed the door open, old hinges protesting.

And stopped.

Ric paused, looked back in the hallway to assure himself of being in the same reality he'd started in and then looked back in the steam-fogged bathroom.

"You're just a kid." he blurted out. Which wasn't entirely accurate - the "kid" was probably about his age. Tall and pale skin latticed with even paler scars. Broad-shouldered but too thin from lack of regular meals. His hair was still a rat's nest, but now that it was clean, it was an unexpectedly brilliant red-gold.

He held the razor awkwardly, trying to hack his way through the copper-wire hair on his chin.

But Ric could see his face now. Like in Newson's rambling story, he had been branded, starlike scar covering nearly half his face. But it couldn't obscure what Ric's brain was having trouble processing.

He had never seen anyone so... beautiful... in his life.

"Wow." Ric breathed.

The young man looked at Ric and tugged at a tangled strand of red, scowling. "It's all... knotted," he said. "Too much here," his hand dropped and he rubbed his rough beard, "…and here."

Ric watched him work out the sentence. "Do you have.. uhm..." he scowled, obviously trying to figure out the word, and then just made a scissoring motion with his fingers. Ric nodded, stepping into the little bathroom before it entirely settled in his brain that this beautiful, strange man was also completely naked.

He willed his groin into submission and quickly shook his head. "Um, you know. No. It's ok. We can get you scissors later. It's ok for now." He thought he felt his cheeks heating up. "And you... ah.. you need help shaving?" Ric asked, caught in some odd binary space where he was both fervently hoping yes and kind of hoping no. The second mainly because he was very close to embarrassing himself.

"I have never used this. I have seen people... ah, shave?" He wagged the razor at Rictor. "But I think, maybe, I'm doing it not right." He rolled his shoulders in a sheepish shrug and Ric swallowed. He wasn't sure how his throat got so dry in such a humid room.

"Uhm. Siddown. On the can there. You're too tall." Ric said with a nervous chuckle. "Ok, so, first we take some shaving cream." He spread the foam across the other's beard, wishing his fingers weren't shaking. Pale blue eyes were fixed on him and Ric felt incredibly self-conscious. "Uhm. So. They call me Rictor, by the way." He started to babble as he spent a little too long rubbing the foam in. "You got a name?"

He felt a twitch of jaw under his fingertips and the redhead nodded slightly. "Called different things, but.. Gaveedra." The word was oddly musical.

"That's.. that's kind of pretty," Ric said as he carefully scraped the razor across the other man's jaw. He left off the part "like you are" and cursed his hormones. "So, that's Genoshan?"

The blue eyes slid closed and if Ric didn't know any better, he would've been looking for a thumping tail, the redhead looked so pleased as Rictor shaved his chin. "I came from Genosha with Major Nathan after the war. He was very kind."

Ric turned that over in his mind and ran his thumb across Gaveedra's newly clean jawline. Things had taken a left turn somewhere and he wasn't sure how to process this. It wasn't as if he didn't have too many problems finding dates of either sex…but this one. This one was different. He let his hand fall before it got too comfortable. "Hey, I managed to find some stuff you might be... ah, able to wear." He kept his gaze firmly on the pale blue eyes that now focused on him. "An' I brought food."

"You're... kind, too." He almost smiled. Ric was glad he didn't. It would be more than his crotch could handle.

~~~~

They ate in relative silence, his houseguest devouring most of both their portions like a hungry dog.

(Look what followed me home, Ma.) Ric thought with a fresh wave of faint hysteria. (Can I keep him? I promise to walk him and brush him and...)

"So, what happened to, uhm.. the Major?" Ric asked to keep from going down that road any further.

"He died," the bum... no, _Gaveedra_ said. "He was old. But I am good at... at surviving." He shrugged, but there was something sad and brief that crossed his face.

Ric felt a twinge of pity.

(He died and you had nowhere to go, in a strange country.) he thought, but what he said was "That was _your_ slave tag, right?"

"Yes." Gaveedra ducked his head, tangled red hair falling across his face. "It was all I had to give you for your music, Rictor..." he was smiling and Ric wanted to die just there because as brief as it was, it made his scarred face light up brilliantly. "I think I fell over love with your music."

Rictor couldn't quite remember why he'd been so annoyed with the other man earlier. "Thank you," he mumbled and patted the redhead's knee as he flushed. The big man was wearing Jimmy's sweatshirt and Sam's pants and neither one fit him correctly but it was better than the rags, stiff with dirt, which he'd been wearing earlier.

"Gaveedra," he tried the name out again, hand still resting on his knee. "You can call me Ric, ok?" he said softly.

"Ric." There was that faint quirk of a smile again. "That is kind of... pretty. Like you." He coloured faintly, and fidgeted with his hair, long fingers darting out then, brushing across Rictor's darker ones.

Ric couldn't help but laugh, shaking like the pavement had earlier. "Not fair."

The tiny smile blossomed again and Julio Esteban Richter, also known as Rictor, Ric or "That Guitar Guy on the B-Train Platform" thought this might be the best holiday ever.


End file.
